Are Surveyors' Maps and Journals an Untapped Source for Climate Scientists?

In early nineteenth century Australia, surveyors were given a near impossible task by colonial authorities. They were asked to use their expeditions to ascertain "the general nature of the climate, as to heat, cold, moisture, winds, rains, periodical seasons." Meeting this directive was difficult because most surveyors did not spend more than a few days or weeks in a location that was unfamiliar to them. More

A Conversation with Bathsheba Demuth: Histories of the Changing Arctic

In the tenth episode of Climate History, our podcast, Emma Moesswilde and Dagomar Degroot interview Bathsheba Demuth, assistant professor of environmental history at Brown University. Her new book, Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait is now out with Norton, and has received rave reviews in both popular and academic publications. ​More

A Conversation with Kevin Anchukaitis: Past Climate Change and Why It Matters Today

In the ninth episode of Climate History, our podcast, we relaunch with a new co-host: Emma Moesswilde, PhD Student in Environmental History at Georgetown University. For the relaunch, Moesswilde and Dagomar Degroot are joined by Kevin Anchukaitis,  associate professor of geography at the University of Arizona and one of the world's leading paleoclimatologists. ​More

Remembering Disaster: How Qing Dynasty Records Reveal Connections Between Memory and Environment

Memory is one of the most powerful parts of the human psyche. It can help us make sense of the world around us, but it can also cloud our vision. Over long timeframes, memory can actually become embedded into a culture in ways that are difficult to comprehend. One of the complex effects of this sort of cultural memory may be the development of a culture of resilience in the face of extreme climatic events. More

Bird Migration, Climate Change, and History

On May 11, birders in 130 countries took part in World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD). This citizen science and conservation project enrolls professional and amateur ornithologists twice a year—in May and October—to record sightings of hundreds of species during their spring and fall passages through continental and hemispheric regions, or so-called flyways, across Africa, Europe, Asia, the Americas, and Australasia. More

Does the United States Need a Climate Refugee Policy? 

People displaced by extreme weather events and slower-developing environmental disasters are often called “climate refugees.” The term “refugee,” however, has a very precise meaning in US and international law and that definition limits those who can be admitted as refugees and asylees. Calling someone a “refugee” does not mean that they will be legally recognized as such and offered humanitarian protection. More

More: Energy History and Energy Futures

​If nuclear power is to be used as a stop-gap or transitional technology for the de-carbonization of industrial economies, what comes next? Energy history could offer new ways of imagining different energy futures, but current scholarship offers linear narratives of growth toward the development of high-energy economies, leaving little room to imagine low-energy futures. More

The Nuclear Renaissance in a World of Nuclear Apartheid 

Nuclear power is back, riding on growing fears of catastrophic climate change. The climate crisis has rekindled heated debate over the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear power. However, advocates and opponents alike tend to overlook or downplay a unique risk that sets atomic energy apart from all other energy sources: proliferation of nuclear weapons. More

​The Cold War Constraints on the Nuclear Energy Option 

Shortly before uranium miner Gus Frobel died of lung cancer in 1978 he said, “This is reality. If we want energy, coal or uranium, lives will be lost. And I think society wants energy and they will find men willing to go into coal or uranium.” Frobel understood that governments had crunched the numbers. They had calculated how many miners died comparatively in coal and uranium production to produce energy. More

Only Dramatic Reductions in Energy Use Will Save The World From Climate Catastrophe

There is no longer any debate. Humanity sits at the precipice of catastrophic climate change caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Recent reports provide clear assessments: to limit global warming to 1.5ºC above historic levels, thereby avoiding the most harmful consequences, governments, communities, and individuals around the world must take immediate steps to decarbonize their societies and economies. More

Did Colonialism Cause Global Cooling? Revisiting an Old Controversy 

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Roughly 11,000 years ago, rising sea levels submerged Beringia, the vast land bridge that once connected the Old and New Worlds. Vikings and perhaps Polynesians briefly established a foothold in the Americas, but it was the voyage of Columbus in 1492 that firmly restored the ancient link between the world’s hemispheres. Plants, animals, and pathogens – the microscopic agents of disease – never before seen in the Americas now arrived in the very heart of the western hemisphere. More

Next Generation Nuclear? 

Climate change is here to stay. So too for the next several millennia is radioactive fallout from nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl and Fukushima. Earthlings will also live with radioactive products from the production and testing of nuclear weapons. The question as to whether next generation nuclear power plants will be “perfectly safe” appears to decline in importance as we consider the catastrophic outcome of climate change. More

Closing Nuclear Plants Will Increase Climate Risks

On March 28, 1979, I woke up late and rushed to catch the bus to my suburban high school in Rockville MD. So it wasn't until I found my friends clustered around the radio in the cafeteria that I learned seventy-seven miles upwind of us, Three Mile Island Reactor Unit 2 was in partial meltdown. ​​More

Environmental Historians Debate: Can Nuclear Power Solve Climate Change? 

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This series focuses on what environmental and energy historians can bring to discussions about nuclear power. It is a tripartite effort between Active History, the Climate History Network (CHN), and the Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE), and will be cross-posted across all three platforms. The series is co-edited by a member of each of those websites: professors Jim Clifford, Dagomar Degroot, and Daniel Macfarlane. More

Reconstructing Africa's Climate: Solving the Riddle of Rainfall

To grasp the significance of global warming, and to confirm its connection to human activity, you have to know how climate has changed in the past. Scholars of past climate change know that understanding how climate has varied over historical timescales requires access to robust long-term datasets. This is not a problem for regions such as Europe and North America, which have a centuries-long tradition of recording weather with instruments. More

Two Decades from Disaster? The IPCC's "Global Warming of 1.5° C"

​International climate change agreements have long aimed at limiting anthropogenic global warming to 2°C Celsius, relative to so-called “pre-industrial” averages. Yet in early 2015, more than 70 scientists contributed to a report that warned about then-poorly understood dangers of warming short of 2° C. Several months later, Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) met in Paris and reached an agreement to keep global warming to “well below” 2° C. The Paris Agreement invited the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to prepare a special Assessment Report. More
Best of the Web:
November 2019

Little Ice Age Lessons. Aeon Magazine

The Ghosts of Ancient Hurricanes Live in Caribbean Blue Holes. National Geographic

The Planet is Burning. Aeon Magazine

Human Activities are Drying Out the Amazon: NASA Study. NASA JPL

We're Doomed. Now What? The Walrus    

Climate History Newsletters:
Quarterly Updates

Volume 5, Issue 1 (2019):
Weighing nuclear power as a solution to climate change, depopulation and the Little Ice Age.

Volume 4, Issue 3 (2018):
Chinese climate history, whaling and past climate, and a new handbook for university students.

Volume 4, Issue 2 (2018):
A new climate history of Australia, reconstructions of Crimean and Indian climates, and the Tipping Points Project.

Volume 4, Issue 1 (2018):
A new climate history working group, the Sun's impact on climate, and cold golden ages.

Volume 3, Issue 3 (2017):
Famines, volcanoes and ancient violence, and the frigid conquest of North America.

Volume 3, Issue 2 (2017):
Disaster memories, climate and conflict, and controlling nature.

Volume 3, Issue 1 (2017):
Trump's election, medieval climate history, new awards and conferences.

Volume 2, Issue 4 (2016):
PAGES, the IPCC, and Frankenstein's monster.

Volume 2, Issue 3 (2016):
Volcanoes, droughts, and the Maunder Minimum.

Volume 2, Issue 2 (2016):
The Spanish Empire and global cooling, annual meeting at the ASEH conference.

Volume 2, Issue 1 (2016):
New financial support and the Old World Drought Atlas.    

Archived Best of the Web

​Archived Features
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